Hopefully they include John if he is willing to from the very beginning of any other projects!

Agreed! It really is shame he wasn't asked a lot earlier, what a ride it would have been. But like he said it is still going to be a very fun and enjoyable coaster, which I am confident it will be.Great talk from John, and thanks to Towerstimes for uploading it for us who couldn't attend the event!

An interesting blog post from Wicker Man’s Creative Lead, Bradley Wynne. Among other things, it offers some insight into the actual Wicker Man structure:

The six-storey Wicker Man itself will have a head which is half human and half ram. The human face represents the Beornen’s deity, who they’re hoping to ‘re-awaken’ by setting fire to the Wicker Man structure. He looks ethereally up at the sky, in a ‘power stance’. The Ram looks imposingly down over the riders on the reverse side. The Ram is a reference to the ‘Horned God’ which has been referenced throughout history in many different belief systems and legends. It is often associated with the nature and the cycle of life.

In other news we have a sponsor in the shape of Seabrook Crisps! The below post was also shared by Towers on Facebook.

What do you make of this? I hope we get something similar to The Smiler pizza with some kind of smokey/spicy flavour named after Wicker Man being announced!

Hope it doesn't destroy the theming having advertising within the ride- hope they keep the sponsorship wisely ringfenced thus out of the way, a music festival some years back totally destroyed its vibe by having sponsor branding very dominant in the landscape in such a way that it totally overpowered the site visually, so the key is to keep it separate- which is easily done. I imagine in this case they won't make the same kind of mistake as the context is more theming-minded thus less likely to not think about the consequences of over-branding.

But aside from that I can't resist some flavour speculation. Burnt to a Crisp? Cheese on Toast? Bangers and Ash? Smoking Sheep? Wicky Beef Ribs?OK I'll stop now.

But- especially if they do revive the smokehouse idea which they should because it would be amusingly on theme and I still love that it would be its own great pun - some unique flavours and menu items named to suit the theme could be cool (with some vegan options too).

An interesting blog post from Wicker Man’s Creative Lead, Bradley Wynne. Among other things, it offers some insight into the actual Wicker Man structure:

The six-storey Wicker Man itself will have a head which is half human and half ram. The human face represents the Beornen’s deity, who they’re hoping to ‘re-awaken’ by setting fire to the Wicker Man structure. He looks ethereally up at the sky, in a ‘power stance’. The Ram looks imposingly down over the riders on the reverse side. The Ram is a reference to the ‘Horned God’ which has been referenced throughout history in many different belief systems and legends. It is often associated with the nature and the cycle of life.

Reading through the blog post, it mentions "Burning Embers will light the path as the train hurtles towards the structure", could this just be some standard permanent lighting on the track? Or could it be something more, like flaming beacons using fake fire. Perhaps it might e something to do with the inside of the sound tunnels, any thoughts?

That article was very interesting, especially the new hints on what the effects might be like. Definitely seems there WILL be real fire on the Wicker Man structure itself, and "burning embers" is very intriguing - perhaps an effect inside the sound tunnels? Could just be achieved with lots of little LED dots flickering away? Would be nice if it were something even more spectacular though, like the track appearing to be on fire...

An interesting blog post from Wicker Man’s Creative Lead, Bradley Wynne. Among other things, it offers some insight into the actual Wicker Man structure:

......

Reading through the blog post, it mentions "Burning Embers will light the path as the train hurtles towards the structure", could this just be some standard permanent lighting on the track? Or could it be something more, like flaming beacons using fake fire. Perhaps it might e something to do with the inside of the sound tunnels, any thoughts?

"The Wicker Man rollercoaster experience will see the chosen ones lured in by the Beornen, and invited to climb on-board the Beornen’s train passing further into their secretive world, splintering around a labyrinth of twisted track. Burning embers will light the path as the train hurtles towards the six-storey high flaming effigy. Speeding towards the Wicker Man, he will spectacularly ignite into real flames as the train bursts through his torso three times. "

This does also suggest a clever take on boarding the coaster, will be interesting to see what happens with the station and related buildings. And it does mention "real flames" on the Wicker Man so it's sounding impressive still, will be intriguing also to experience 'The Wardley Drops' i.e. how the first two drops are after his suggested changes mentioned in your J.W. q and a session!

On the burning embers it makes you wonder if there is something clever- lights in some of the track or some similarly clever solution, wonder if they considered putting any lighting elements in the wood itself as that could have looked cool- l.e.d.s making the wood flicker, didn't see anything to suggest this so something off-track is more likely -whatever these features are I can see this ride being stunning in the evening!

Just seen some great closeups of the wicker man, He truly looks fantastic. I'd post the pics but it looks like they were taken from a drone. Lovely 4K zoom -ns though! Will look spectacular with flames licking its sides!

From the same blog post lewis97 posted Alton Towers have confirmed real fire effects will be used on the Wicker Man.

The Wicker Man rollercoaster experience will see the chosen ones lured in by the Beornen, and invited to climb on-board the Beornen’s train passing further into their secretive world, splintering around a labyrinth of twisted track. Burning embers will light the path as the train hurtles towards the six-storey high flaming effigy. Speeding towards the Wicker Man, he will spectacularly ignite into real flames as the train bursts through his torso three times.

I just thought I'd post it to clear up a few misconceptions people have had regarding fire effects.

The only fire effects, I expect, will be from the actual Wicker Man structure where it will be constructed from metal or within the pre-show where it is controlled or contained. Everything else will be special effects as it is obvious that fire and wood do not fuse together naturally. A little Merlin Magic Making will make it visually stunning, given the impression that the coaster is on fire, elsewhere.

I'm a little worried about how they're going to keep the effects running. The Swarm's only goes off every 3 trains when it's turned on, presumably to save on cost and this will seemingly have at least 3 real fire effects per train, and Merlin parks have been notoriously bad with keeping effects running. If Inferno struggles to have its mist effects on in the queue and tunnel, I wouldn't be surprised if WM's effects break regularly in the future, especially with there being so many an so complex by the sounds of it. This also raises the point that for the attraction to be experienced as it's designed to be, all the effects need to be working. Does that mean they'll still run the presumably rather expensive fire effects on days where there's barely anyone in the park and trains are going out less than half empty? Or in heavy rain? This seems like sort of thing where an effect will break, and fixing it will mean shutting the ride because it's in the ride area and it'll take longer than a closed day to fix so they'll just leave it broken until they can fix it, probably the rest of the season. Seeing as 2 of the main effects in the ghost train were broken for many months because they didn't have the budget to fix them while the ride was still being funded by MMM, I'm really not holding my breath for this.

There is still a major issue, having to look behind you to see the wicker man on fire. Does anyone have any thoughts?

You enter the structure three times I believe, twice from one side and once from the other, the fact it has the ram's head and wicker man means it will I assume be set up for all of those three interactions, of course we won't know if the effects are the same each time seen from different vantage points/ directions or different for each interaction tailored to that specific interaction until we get to ride it.

I expect they may also be designed to look good for onlookers as well as with Galactica's portal and Oblivion's tunnel entrance, especially as the queue weaves around the ride and the structure.